For Kianna Sherk, her iPad was a window into another world.
It disappeared last month and her mother believes that it may have been stolen.
The tablet contained photos of her family and her favourite music, and was a favourite item of the nine-year-old. Kianna suffers from a neurological impairment and has the mental age of a five-year-old.
"It was very nice for her to focus on the iPad," said her mother, Ricki Sherk. "It was a very calming thing for her to do."
Ricki is looking for the public’s help is returning the tablet to her daughter, which she bought as a gift for Kianna’s last birthday, along with an "indestructible" red and black case.
Ricki believed that someone may have snuck into her house and stolen it.
"It was on the table and the backdoor was unlocked," she said. "We had a pack of smokes go missing on the table. I thought the iPad had been misplaced."
However, their search of the house did not turn up the missing iPad.
On Feb. 8, however, she found a troubling surprise. She had set up Kianna’s iPad to use Facetime, an app which allows people to talk via the iPad's video camera.
"Because she's so young, her iPad is the same sign in as my phone," she said. "When somebody tried to Facetime it, they tried to use my phone, because they're both linked in together."
This number, which she did not recognize, led her to believe that the iPad was stolen. On Monday, she said she was going to the police for help.
But two days before that, she reached out on Facebook for help, and said the response has been "fabulous" and "completely overwhelming."
In addition to the support given to her, one person donated a BlackBerry Playbook, a similar type of tablet, to her daughter.
However, she admits that “it’s not quite the same thing.”
“Her iPad has a lot of pictures, she takes a lot of pictures of herself, her brother, and her dogs,” she said. “It has all of her music on it.”
Ricki is still looking for the tablet, and is looking for the public’s support.
Anyone wishing to contact the police with any information about the allegedly stolen iPad is asked to call either the Dawson Creek RCMP at 250-784-3700 or to call anonymously to 1-800-242-8477 (TIPS).
